Introduction:
This term paper has presented a proposal for the performing ART class. In this paper, the performance chosen by the student has been elaborated. Penn State’s Center is a staple of the university and the community. The Center was founded in the year 1985. The focus of presentations is on touring Broadway, jazz, classics, chamber music, and others. The purpose of those presentations is to engage students, staff members, and the faculty in dance, theatre, and music.The Center for the Performing Arts aims to schedule highest caliber performances. The Center provides a balance of cultural enrichment and academics. The Center offers different courses related to art, music, and related areas. One of these courses was INART 005. During the course, students were provided with the opportunity to explore a variety of performance. The performances of students ranged from musical theaters and ballet. The performances also included modern jazz. Students were provided with the opportunity to choose five performances. When choosing the options, they are required to consider different factors including audience demographics, educational value, entertainment, variety, value, and venue.In this paper, the proposal has presented three productions that could be brought to Penn State’s Center for the Performing Arts
Yellow River Piano ConcertoThe Yellow River Piano Concerto is ideal for performance at the Philadelphia Performing Arts Centre. Although it is important that a piano is present, the work is a popular one and would certainly appeal to the students at the centre. The wealth of musical themes present in the concerto also shows that it would be ideal for performance in such a venue.
We then moved on to the Yellow River Concerto which is another important work in the Chinese canon. It is a piano concerto of sorts and has been made famous by several exponents and great pianists who have taken it upon themselves to spread its message accordingly. Here we had a very fine Chinese pianist in the form of Cong Fan with the Yin Chenzong version being used and who brought an intrinsic beauty to all proceedings demonstrating a certain intimacy and bond between themselves and the members of the orchestra.
The opening movement was very beautifully played with the conductor keeping what may be termed as a steady temp throughout and demonstrating a good command of proceedings. Chenzong was perhaps the more involved pianist of the two and his playing was truly out of this world especially in the parts where the music takes on a certain turn which is overtly dramatic. The sound of the orchestra was also extremely well managed and everything came across as quite radical especially in the concluding parts of the movement which demonstrated a certain alacrity and directness in proceedings.
The second movement was also very well played and here the pensive aspect of the work came to the fore in more ways than one. Yet again one could observe the wonderful interplay between wind instruments and soloists which is important for the success of the work and I would dare say that everything came across as very satisfactory indeed. I also enjoyed the third movement which was very pensive and beautiful.
The final movement was also very well played with emphasis on the rhythmic structure of the piece as well as the sense of expansive beauty which characterises the Yellow River in all its glory. I felt very enthusiastic after the work concluded and would definitely recommend the performance wholeheartedly and without reservation. The Arizona orchestra definitely attempted to delve into the innermost recesses of the work and this lent good projection to everything.
The hall’s acoustic at the Pennsylvania Centre for Performing Arts is ideally suited to large orchestral works so a romantic symphony is certainly something which should be on the cards. I chose Brahms’ Second Symphony due to its melodious nature and its veritable wealth of orchestral grandeur. It is obviously something which would go down well with the audience of students.
The final work on the programme was the evergreen Symphony Nr 2 by Johannes Brahms, probably one of the most famous symphonic works in the repertoire. Tao Fan chose a swift tempo to start off the first movement very much reminiscent of the great Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet whose recorded cycle on Decca Eloquence deserves pride of place. Fan went through the motions of the first movement with some alacrity and intensity focusing again on the importance of the woodwinds as the main point of thrust.
The slow second movement was also imbued with pensive pathos and great sensitivity throughout and once again I was very much enthused by the wind playing which was top notch. Comparisons may be odious perhaps but on the whole, I felt that Fan contributed an excellent reading of this movement which conjured up memories of great conductors such as Otto Klemperer, Herbert von Karajan and Sir Thomas Beecham.
The Scherzo was also very well played indeed with the sprightly moments coming out very beautifully indeed. Moving on to the Finale, one perhaps hoped for some more drive and momentum accordingly but on the whole the work was concluded very successfully and without much problems with the orchestra accrediting itself quite excellently throughout.
Tartuffe by Moliere’
Tartuffe is perhaps one of the most revealing of plays by Moliere as it deals with women’s follies and disenchantment with men. The character of Tartuffe is in fact crucial to the whole play as he is quite a fraud and morally corrupts everything which comes into contact with him. His relationship with Orgon is also a crucial and important part of the play and shows that the pretensions of Tartuffe are accordingly part and parcel of the whole play.
Tartuffe also has a disdain for women which is quite disarming in this respect and demonstrates that life is not always a bed of roses. The scheming of Tartuffe as he attempts to get himself married to Orgon’s daughter Marianne also shows the extent to which he has embedded himself into their family.
Eventually Tartuffe is trapped into confessing how his desire for Elmire dominates all his being. Eventually he manages to infiltrate himself into the family accordingly demonstrating that everything can be achieved by some reverse psychology. In fact most parts of the play show that reverse psychology is an important part of proceedings and that is actually what it is based upon.
The relationship between Orgon and Tartuff is also extremely important as it demonstrates how this man tends to completely dominate the family into which he enters. The sexual peccadilloes which are also a consistent part of what is going on demonstrate that Tartuffe’s opinion of women was nothing less than a sexual object without much interest in their academic achievements.
In her essay Sarah Lawell focuses on the points which are raised by Moliere and which also demonstrate the importance of women to the whole gambit of human drama. Women are analysed with a special reference to their intrinsic contribution to society as well as their need to fulfil their sexual ambitions and desires accordingly however without being used.
This is especially relevant to the plot in Tartuffe where the woman is rather left to fend for herself and to her own devices accordingly with several men using her for their own selfish aims. Obviously the woman is taunted and occasionally abused or left to decay when she is used by the man which is quite a sorry state of affairs even in this day and age. However Moliere was also a subtly persuasive playwright in the sense that he gave the woman her due even in situations where she was perhaps excluded and dominated by men who were always in the ascendant.
The way Orgon decides to marry his daughter to Tartuffe is also instructive in the way that the women’s thoughts are not even calculated is interesting in the extreme. She may feel slightly left out in this respect but is also very much part of things in this respect. Yet her opinion counts for nothing as she is left to face the music and a terrible life with Tartuffe who would surely abandon her whenever it suited him.
This play is an ideal drama which would be more than suited to the acoustic of the Pennsylvania Centre for Performing Arts,
Works Cited:
Molière et le roi, François Rey & Jean Lacouture, éditions du seuil, 2007
Molière et le roi, François Rey & Jean Lacouture, éditions du seuil, 2007, p76
Walter Frisch. Brahms: The Four Symphonies New Haven: Yale University Press (2003): 67–90
